May 13, 2016

Stream: The Paranoyds - After You

Stream The Paranoyds' After You EP in its entirety

In this day and age, it's rare that you meet a band that doesn't have a Facebook page or at the very least a bandcamp account. This is the case with LA-based band The Paranoyds whose social media presence is few and far between. After listening to a couple of their gritty garage rock tunes, you'll begin to understand that isn't really their style nor should it be. The four-piece is the kind of band you catch playing at your friend's basement show and later chase down to see if they have any merch after only hearing one set; their strung out, stoner punk songs are ripe with spontaneity and sincerity. Every line that they deliver rolls off the tongue with an unflinching realness that had me looking up flights to the West Coast.

We're super excited to stream their After You EP in its entirety, as well as offer a secret glimpse into this elusive, Internet-shy band and all of the love, sweat, and tears that went into their impossibly cool first release. But if you take away one thing from their debut, have it be that The Paranoyds aren't trying to be anyone but themselves.

The Paranoyds on their After You EP:

"We’ve all been best friends since high school. We used to cover No Doubt and the Violent Femmes
in our old drummer’s laundry room, which at the time, felt like a great place to play (laundry going
and all!) When we came back from college almost two years ago, we remembered how much fun it
was playing music together, so I guess that’s when the Paranoyds officially began. It then took us
over a year to be in a spot where we felt good about creating something as permanent as an EP. It
sort of happened around the same time when we met our current drummer, David. Everything just
kind of clicked and we were like, “Oh! This is what we’re supposed to sound like.” Our main focus has always been playing shows. There’s a good side and a bad side when it comes
to being elusive and “off the grid”. It used to be, if you wanted to listen to a band, you’d go to a show.
Now, everything has a presence on the Internet. Not only were we not ready for that – we wanted a
more organic reach. Playing music, especially live shows, is so cathartic for us. That’s something we
were more interested in sharing. We were lucky enough to record with our friend Spencer Hartling,
who had seen us live a bunch of times before we even stepped into the studio and he knew exactly
what kind of sound we were going after. “Ratboy” and “Heather D,” are some of the first songs we’ve ever written, but they’ve changed so
much as we’ve developed and honed our sound. The girl in “Rat Boy” is obsessed with a boy in a
sort of stalker way – wondering what it’d be like to just show up on his street, late at night, hoping to
maybe run into him kind of thing. “Heather D.” is about how you seemingly fall for the same tricks
with the people you date. It’s also about how moms can sometimes give you a hard time when
you’re just trying to live out your own experiences as a young adult. “Freak Out” was written about
when you’re sort of crushing on someone and you’re playing that game where you want to be
available, yet cool, all while realizing that you’re sort of freaking yourself out because you’re trying
to be all these (inherently) contradictory things. We’re releasing a music video for “Bad Idea” next week to coincide with the start of our tour opening
for DIIV. We’re so stoked to be going to so many new cities – Austin, New Orleans, Boston, etc.! It’s
our first tour and it feels sort of surreal that we’re given the opportunity to be on the road and be
doing what we’ve been after all along."